Final Phase of the Korean War

• The Panmunjom cease-fire agreement was signed on July 27, 1953. North Koreans celebrate the 27th day of July every year as the victory day. However, they were not the real winners. The winners are the American negotiators against their communist counterparts.

• The other important winner was Dr. Syngman Rhee, the president of (south) Korea, against the Eisenhower administration of the United States.

  Thanks to those winners, (south) Korea now is one of the most prosperous countries in the world, and is the most important ally of the United States in the Pacific area. Please read the following articles carefully.

Eisenhower came to Korea in January of 1963 two weeks before his inauguration. He told Rhee stopping the war was a better alternative than continuing the costly war. Dr. Rhee was not impressed.

Let us summarize what Americans wanted and what Koreans did not want during the Panmunjom cease-fire talks (1951-53). In 1953, the most pressing issue for the Eisenhower administration was to stop the war in Korea and bring American boys home. However, Koreans did not want an inconclusive end of the war with the country divided.

Rhee knew that he could not stop the cease-fire process. The best he could get from Eisenhower was a mutual military treaty which will commit the United States to the security guarantee of Korea. His position was that American troops could go home once the United States signed a paper guaranteeing the security of Korea.
• From the American point of view, it is unthinkable to have a formal treaty with an inferior country like Korea. On the other hand, Eisenhower's Republican administration had enough hard-liners against the communist expansion in Asia. Thus, Rhee's insistence started gaining support among those hard-line anti-communist politicians.

  Dr. Rhee liked this man.

  On June 25, 1953, at a public meeting, President Rhee introduced Gen. Paik Sun-Yup as the man who would occupy Pyongyang again. He pledged to continue fighting, while Americans were getting ready to sign the cease-fire agreement. He sounded crazy to Americans, but they could not ignore him. As for Gen. Paik, he was the commander of the First Division of the Korean army in 1950. In October of 1950, he led his Division to enter his home-town city of Pyongyang. Click here for a very interesting story.

  Korea's mutual defense treaty with the United States being signed in Seoul (September 1953). This was one of the biggest and sweetest packages Rhee obtained from the United States.

  In order to make his point known to Americans, Rhee ordered Korean students to stage anti-cease-fire demonstrations throughout the country. This produced no effects on Americans.

• Still, the Eisenhower administration was silent about the mutual defense treaty. As a last resort, on June 18 (five weeks before the scheduled cease-fire day of July 27), Rhee ordered his Korean POW guards to release all anti-communist North Korean prisoners of war.

  There were approximately 120,000 POWs. About one half of them were anti-communists and were refusing to go back to the North. They had been separated from the die-hard communists and were kept in minimum security camps near Busan. It was an easy job for the Korean guards to let them go. About 28,000 POWs were released. Those POW guards relayed Rhee's message to them.

  "I am your president. You are now free in your country."

• On June 25 of 1953 (one month before the cease fire), there was a public meeting in Busan (capital city at that time) marking the third anniversary of the 6.25 day. President Rhee said there that Koreans would march northward after Americans left the country. He introduced General Paik Sun-Yup to the crowd as the man (yi-saram) who first reached Pyongyang (before Americans) with his Korean troops in October of 1950.

• Since Americans and the Communists had worked out an elaborate procedure for handling those POWs during the cease-fire talks, Rhee's action created a great shock to them. The Communists were accusing Americans of violating the agreement. As a consequence, the Eisenhower administration had to send a special envoy to to Busan (capital city of Korea at that time) to find out what Rhee really wanted.

  Rhee set out three conditions:

  1. to double the size of the Korean army equipped with U.S. arms,

  2. financial commitment to construct an industrial base,

  3. a written security guarantee in the form of mutual defense treaty.

  Americans accepted Rhee's terms and Rhee's promise not to jeopardize the cease-fire process. The cease-fire was signed on July 27, 1953. Rhee's Korean government did not participate in the process and did not sign the cease-fire documents. In the South, the cease-fire was a national disgrace. Click here for the NLL issue.

  Korean money looked like this in 1953. Korea's economy is infinitely stronger now.

• In 1953, the population of Busan was about one million. The addition of 28,000 more Koreans meant a substantial population shift. Yet, Koreans in Busan did not complain, and those "new" citizens were accommodated comfortably in private houses. They were given jobs. Korean girls did not mind marrying them.

  We all say that Korea is much stronger country now because of its industrial production. On the other hand, I would say Korea is much weaker country. Why? There are now more than ten million people in Seoul. There is a possibility of 28,000 North Korean refugees coming to Seoul in one day. The city of Seoul has more than enough economic power to accommodate them. But, do the citizens of Seoul have enough hearts and minds to absorb them?

American and North Korean soldiers are exchanging fun talks while tedious negotiations are taking place inside the conference hall, during the Panmunjom cease-fire talks. The B-29 bomber (small) with four propellers and the B-36 bomber with six propellers.

During the tedious cease-fire negotiations (1951-53), one of the sticking issues was how the prisoners of war should be handled. There were many North Korean and Chinese POWs who did not want to go back to their communist countries. Americans wanted to let them stay in the South, but the Communists insisted that all of them be returned according to the Geneva Convention on POWs.

• In order to break this stalemate, the Eisenhower administration deployed B-36 bombers to Guam. This is a bailed nuclear threat to China. The B-36 bomber was designed after World War II to carry nuclear bombs. American used B-29 bombers to flatten Germany and Japan during World War II, and North Korea during the Korean War. B ut they were not designed to carry nuclear bombs. One of those B-29s barely carried one nuclear bomb to Hiroshima in August of 1945. Click here to see how big the B-36 bomber is compared with the B-29.

  The Communists had to give in, but insisted that a neutralist country be selected to examine the will of each individual. They agreed to invite India to send a group of delegates who would examine the true intention of each of those who did not want to go back.

• After this agreement was reached and both sides started making preparations for the signing ceremony, President Rhee released 2,8000 non-communist POWs under his control, in violation of the agreement. By doing so, Rhee showed to Americans that he was in a position to seriously disrupt the cease-fire process Americans had worked out with the Communist counterparts.

  On July 27, 1953, the cease-fire document was signed by Lt. Gen. William Harrison of the U.S. Army and Gen. Nam Il of the North Korean People's Army. Korea (south) did not participate in the cease-fire process.

  The Eisenhower administration had to send a special envoy to Busan (capital city of Korea at that time) to find out what Rhee really wanted. Rhee set out three conditions: (1) to double the size of the Korean army equipped with U.S. arms, (2) financial commitment to construct an industrial base, (3) a written security guarantee in the form of mutual defense treaty.

  Americans accepted Rhee's terms and Rhee's promise not to jeopardize the cease-fire process. The cease-fire was signed on July 27, 1953. Rhee's Korean government did not participate in the process and did not sign the cease-fire documents. In the South, the cease-fire was a national disgrace.

  Click here to read what he said.

• North Korean authorities took a different view. There was a big victory celebration in Pyongyang on July 28, the day after the cease-fire agreement. Kim Il-Sung made a speech thanking all Koreans (in the North) for making great sacrifice for the "National Liberation War" which defeated invading American imperialists. The Pyongyang radio (my favorite station at that time) claimed the great People's army shot down 3,700 American aircrafts.

• Click here for a photo of their first "Victory Day" celebration in 1953. Since then, they hold every year a giant celebration on the 27th day od July as the "Vicotory Day."

• However, throughout the two-year-long negotiations, Americans got most of what they wanted. The only concession they made was about construction of new airfields. Americans initially insisted that no new airfields be constructed. This demand was not realistic, and was abandoned as a "major concession" to the Communists.

• As for the cease-fire line, the Communist side originally insisted on the 38th parallel, but gave in to the American demand that the line be the existing combat line. As for the line on the West Sea, North Korea was aware of their fishermen. They demanded the administrative line between Kyonggi and Hwanghae province. Americans initially agreed, but the Underwood brothers intervened.

  Two Underwood brothers (middle) were the authors of the NNL as an extension of the cease-fire line to the West Sea.

  This NLL is strikingly similar to the sea route they used to sail from Seoul to Kumipo on a boat build by their father in 1938. The father was the president of Yonhee College (Yonsei Univ.).

  My family used this route to come to the South in May of 1946. This map tells where the 38th parallel is. My house and Underwood's villa were in the red-dotted area.

  Horace Underwood was the first American missionary in Korea. He had his villa at the Kumipo beach near Sorae on the southern coast of Hwanghae Province. As I said many times before, I spent the first eleven years my life there. What is so special about this place? Click here for the early history of Korean Christianity.

  From the Island of Baeknyun, you can see Sorae's mountains. The North Korean side wanted this island for their fishing purposes, but it was occupied by Korean marines at that time. The island was the South's intelligence base during the war.

• Americans, tired of negotiations, were ready to give up this island, but two of the Underwood grandsons intervened. Horace Underwood had a son known to Koreans as Dr. Won Han-Kyung who devoted his entire life to Yonsei University. He had four sons. The eldest son was Horace III (known as Won Il-Han), and the youngest son is Richard. These two sons spoke Korean fluently and worked as interpreters during the cease-fire negotiations.

  These Underwood brothers wanted to keep the Baeknyun Island on our side. The reason was simple. They could see their house in Kumipo from this island.

• Their logic was even correct. The cease-fire line was agreed to be the combat line. The Baeknyun Island was under our military control. The Underwood brothers persuaded the chief American negotiator and thus General Mark Clark (the commander of the U.N. Forces) not to give up the island. They presented this map. This then was the American position.

  The cease-fire was signed on July 27 without an agreement on the line on the West Sea. From our point of view, there were no problems at that time. Americans maintained an absolute naval superiority over North Korea's bath-tub navy.

• Even on this issue, Americans had their way. These days, we hear often about naval confrontations in that area, and North Koreans say different things about the cease-fire line in the sea.

• I am giving my final exam to students today (2005.5.17), and I will be making frequent conference trips during the summer. While attending a conference in Sweden next month, I will be making an excursion to a Russian city of Kaliningrad.

  This city used to be a German city called Koenigsburg before 1945. I am going there because I have a great respect for a philosopher named Immanuel Kant who spent his entire life there. After Stalin took over that place in 1945, as he did to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, he kicked out all Germans and sent Russians into that city. I am curious about how effective Stalin was in his human engineering.

  Stalin was interested in moving Koreans to Kazkhstan and Uzbechistan, and sending Russians into the Korean peninsula. Rhee Seungman and Kim Il-Sung, though sworn enemies, prevented this disaster.

1. Who is responsible for starting the Panmunjom cease-fire talk?

2. When and how did the cease-fire talk begin?

   Who really won in the talks.

3. Many other questions. I feel I have to clarify these issues before I die, because I am the only one who could answer some of the above questions.